In this episode, we talk to Whitney Goodman about what toxic positivity is, where it shows up and the importance of teaching people how to help us when we’re struggling.
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Whitney Goodman is the radically honest psychotherapist behind the hugely popular Instagram account @sitwithwhit, the author of Toxic Positivity, and the owner of The Collaborative Counseling Center, a private therapy practice in Miami, FL. She helps people who want to improve their relationships and emotional awareness.
Social Media Handle: @sitwithwhit
Memorable Moments:
2:04 Toxic positivity is really this just unrelenting pressure to be happy and positive, and be pursuing that at all costs, no matter what the circumstances are. And I find that it's something that we use against ourselves and other people. The reason that positivity can become toxic or so damaging is that it ultimately becomes dismissive, causing people to shut down their emotions to dismiss what they're feeling and thinking. It also causes us to feel really isolated.
4:49 I feel like lately, especially over the last two years, we've all become a little bit more isolated. We've all kind of had these moments of like, what is important to me in life and trying to figure that out. But it's caused a lot of confusion for people.
6:28 Teaching people how to help us when we're struggling, I think, is a lot of our own responsibility. I think if we can empower people to be more vocal about that, we can also stop putting so much pressure on ourselves to always know the exact perfect thing to say to someone. And that's when that toxic positivity usually comes up, is when we're just trying to figure out something to say or do about a problem that we don't know how to fix.
9:29 Manifestation sort of proposes that like, if you think positively, visualize what you want, put it out there, you're going to get it back and that people get what is meant for them. “What's meant for you will never miss you,” like, we hear a lot of these, these phrases. And the problem I have with that is that I work with a lot of people who have had really unfortunate things happen to them. And I think you can get into this place where it's like, “okay, so that was supposed to happen to me. I deserved it in some way or it was meant to happen to me, it's going to have meaning later in my life.”
10:10 And it's an unfortunate reality that I think we have to remember when it comes to manifestation, all of these types of practices, that it's okay to use that line of thinking for good, positive things. But when you use it for everything about your life, it can be really damaging.
13:00 And in that book, I tried to tackle a lot of the things that we think are negative. So like, complaining, certain types of “negative emotions”, you know, even just feeling your feelings, talking to people about them. And then also giving people scripts or different things to say in situations where I think positivity really doesn't fit as a form of comfort or motivation.
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Allison: 00:08
All right. Well, Whitney, thank you so much for joining us on the show today. Would you mind introducing yourself to our audience?
Whitney Goodman 00:14
Yes. Thank you so much for having me. My name is Whitney Goodman. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist in Florida, and the author of the book toxic positivity.
Angela: 00:25
Well, Whitney, I'm glad you brought that up, because that is the first topic that I would love to dig into with you. And thanks, again, for being here. We're very excited about this. This is honestly, like a huge topic that Allison and I have talked a lot about, we've worked on a lot of content around this within our app Nobu and, and really, I think it's gonna be so helpful as someone coming in, you know, from the outside as an expert to really shed a lot of light on this, because I know, for a lot of folks, at least, that I've worked with, and I know Allison as well, this can be a really confusing topic. And I think there's a lot of controversy around it. So you can shed some light, and I'm so glad you're here to do. So first of all, let's just start off with what is toxic positivity, and then maybe get a little bit into how this, you know, can potentially be harmful to ourselves and others.
Whitney Goodman 01:17
Sure. So toxic positivity is really this just unrelenting pressure to be happy and positive, and be pursuing that at all costs, no matter what the circumstances are. And I find that it's something that we use against ourselves, and other people. The reason that positivity can become toxic or so damaging is that it ultimately becomes dismissive causes people to shut down their emotions to dismiss what they're feeling and thinking, it also causes us to feel really isolated. Because if I think I'm the only one going through this or that you're not going to help me or you're not going to support me, I'm of course going to keep it to myself,
Allison: 02:00
So where do you see us being able to kind of find a better balance, because I think we can probably everybody listening and probably think of that one positive person, at least in their life, who at times, you're just like, stop it, right? Like, I need to be upset right now I need to grieve, I need to kind of process my emotions, like you're too much. So how do we find this like balance? Or what can we do to kind of get through this or help to kind of manage this when you see it pop up.
Whitney Goodman
So when someone uses toxic positivity with you, I think if you have a relationship with them, that's close enough where you can tell them how it feels for you, you should do that. So saying, like, Hey, I know you're really trying to help or I know you're really trying to help me feel better. But that's not really helpful for me right now. And I wish I could just like vent, or I'll ask you, when I'm ready for advice, whatever it is, when it's like strangers, or people you don't really know, you know, in the grocery store or something, I think it's okay to just be like, Oh, thanks, moving on. And in your head be like, I can't believe they said that to me. But some people are not really worth expending our energy over.
Angela: 03:12
So give us a couple examples, or what do people come to you? I'm just curious, too, because of this being your area of expertise. What are Yeah, so what are some commonalities or what do you see, that really might be, you know, more common, more frequent, or just things that you found people are really struggling with, especially lately, maybe with a lot of things going on in the world, or just personally, right, and relationships, things like that, that might just help give us a little bit more context.
Whitney Goodman 03:45
So I work mainly with people that are like aged 25, to 40, who are having relationship issues a lot of the time like with their parents, friends, significant others, and then are also just trying to figure out how to, like be fulfilled by life and like, get through the day. I feel like lately, especially over the last two years, we've all become a little bit more isolated. We've all kind of had these moments of like, what is important to me in life and trying to figure that out. But it's caused a lot of confusion for people. And I think they just want therapy as a place to like, sort all of that out.
Allison: 04:26
And, you know, I'm curious too, because I know you said 25 to 40. Right, but I think this also can really impact and, you know, I know my daughter when she's just like in a funk, she just wants to like let it out. Right? And my sweet mother who's like the nicest person on the planet, like genuinely, like, so positive, but I think that can oftentimes, like really rub the wrong way. What's something that I could share? I know you said like, okay, you know, telling the person but is there are there any other things that we can do personally when somebody may be is kind of hitting a nerve with us when it comes to the the toxic positivity side of things.
Whitney Goodman 05:07
I think modeling that behavior is really important. So even if your mom is like watching how you interact with your daughter when she's upset about something and like, showing it can be helpful. Teaching people, how to help us when we're struggling, I think is a lot of our own responsibility. And so empowering yourself, your kids to be like, tell me how I can be helpful to you like, do you want to hug? Do you want to vent? Do you want me to sit here? Do you want me to like, pile on with you and be like, Yeah, that sucks. I can't believe they did that. Like, I think if we can empower people to be more vocal about that, we can also stop putting so much pressure on ourselves to always know the exact perfect thing to say to someone. And that's when that toxic positivity usually comes up is when we're just trying to figure out something to say or do about a problem that we don't know how to fix.
Angela: 06:02
Absolutely. And we talk about a lot of different, really big issues that come up. And I think that level of discomfort that people have right with, you know, whether it's just giving space to it, or silence in a room, and we want to just constantly throw in an interjection or like you said, coming from a good place, obviously, a level of support or, you know, I think Allison's example is great, my mom does the same thing. She does it to me, she's here right now, she loves me this morning. I love you, mom. But and it's great, because you see, you know that I've seen a shift in sort of her perception of the world and kind of how she takes on stressors. But that's so different for everyone. So I think this is such invaluable information, to just say, you know, we can use this tool, we can use things like positive psychology, and, you know, manifestation and how we sort of want to see the future, maybe different, you know, more positive ways we can look at adapting to different circumstances that maybe we've adapted not so well to in the past, but but we do need to really think about, like Allison said, when when maybe we're, you know, modeling for our children, like you said, how that's gonna have an impact if all we're doing is this very one sided approach, and we're not validating emotions and feelings. So I love that about how this sort of opens up that perspective. Absolutely. But also, as we're talking about, and I know you did a post on this recently, I just thought this was really interesting. But I really want to get a little bit into toxic positivity in the context of manifestation and privilege. So when you brought this up, it just made me think a lot about how helpful that can be for so many people. But you know, how many of us use manifestation as a way to frame and approach the things that we want and the things that we feel like we need, but how we don't really talk about the the sort of power and privilege behind this? Can you speak to that a
Whitney Goodman 08:11
little bit? Sure, people see tend to get very upset, I think when I talk about this, because it's not fun to think about braid, but manifestation sort of proposes that like, if you think positively visualize what you want, put it out there, you're going to get it back and that people get what is meant for them what's meant for you will never miss you like we hear a lot of these, these phrases. And the problem I have with that is that I work with a lot of people who have had really unfortunate things happen to them. And I think you can get into this place where it's like, okay, so that was supposed to happen to me, I deserved it in some way, or it was meant to happen to me, it's going to have meaning later in my life. And sometimes we know like, bad things happen to good people all the time. And it's an unfortunate reality that I think we have to remember when it comes to manifestation, all of these types of practices that it's okay to use that line of thinking for good positive things, but when you use it for everything about your life, it can be really damaging.
Allison: 09:22
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Whitney Goodman 10:52
Yeah, so I decided to write this book. Like, I think it was right at the start of the pandemic. I had recently put out a post lectures a couple years ago, I put out a post on toxic positivity. And in one column, I had all these phrases called them toxic positivity. And in the other, it was like validation and hope, different things you can say. And there was such a polarizing reaction to this post, there was people that were like, This is the dumbest thing I've ever seen, like, how could you possibly call positivity toxic, and then there's people like, I've been looking for this my whole life, like I wanted to I, I've always been bothered by this. And to me, that's a sign of like, okay, there's something that we need to talk about here, when people have such a strong like, opposite reaction. And the more I was writing about this, I realized, alright, people are definitely experiencing this, but it's still such a cultural phenomenon. So I wanted to write a book on it. And in that book, I tried to tackle a lot of the things that we think are negative, so like complaining certain types of net, quote, unquote, negative emotions, you know, even just feeling your feelings, talking to people about them. And then also giving people scripts or different things to say, in situations where I think positivity really doesn't fit as a form of like, comfort or motivation.
Angela: 12:19
Yeah, it's so interesting that you say that it makes me think of, which I sort of alluded to earlier. You know, like, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, right? Or DBT, and how so much of that, and I know, clients I've worked with in the past, and others that I know, personally, it's like, there's such an attachment to some of the more extreme ways that we can learn to manage our emotions, which I know is also very controversial. Now, it's like, why are we managing our emotions, right? So there's a lot of work we're doing in the field of psychology, right. But as an example, it sort of like, gets to this area where we are constantly bouncing around in extremes and trying to find this balance. Again, back to, I think what both of you mentioned earlier, and how we can use these concepts, which is obviously telling based on the response that you got from that post alone, we just get such, you know, polarized opinions about what this means how helpful this is going to be, you know, when to use it when not to so I think that's really helpful that your book will sort of help contextualize that, and give people really concrete ways to, you know, hopefully, use it in a way that's going to be helpful for them. And again, not continue to have to really latch on to one thing or another to continue to polarize, whatever that is, but again, like find that balance, bring it together, see what's going to be helpful, and when that's what it's all about, right? We're just trying to pull things in that are gonna help us get to the next day or next day, or through a family event. Yeah. So I love the book. And I want to know, though, what are you reading? What's, what's out there? Where are you getting into these days,
Whitney Goodman 14:08
I just bought a Kindle so that I can start reading at night, but I'm trying to think of the last books I just read a book called Good morning monster that was written by a psychologist and it's like, I think five or six different stories of different patients and they're so interesting, like people I just would never encounter you know, in my life, and I really liked that. I read a lot of those types of books or like, true crime, pretty much
Allison: 14:38
Gotta love those true crimes. Yes. One of the questions that we also love to ask every guest that comes on our show is at this point in your life, what matters to you most right now?
Whitney Goodman 14:51
I became a mom recently. So definitely. My family has been very important and my job isn't really important lately.
Angela: 15:02
That's awesome. I will I will soon be becoming a mom for the first time and Alison's a mom. So, moms club here. Awesome. Yeah. Yeah. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. Whitney. It's been so nice to talk to you. Can you just let our listeners know how they can follow you on social media or just where they can find you?
Whitney Goodman 15:25
Yeah, absolutely. So you can find me on social media, Instagram, anywhere else I'd sit with way. I also have a community on substack. You can search good enough on there and you'll find me on my website is sitwithwhit.com. Excellent. Well,
Allison: 15:42
thank you so much for being on the show today. We really appreciate you.
Whitney Goodman 15:46
Thank you for having me.
Angela: 15:47
Thanks, Whitney.